Internets

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For other uses, see Internet (disambiguation).

"Internets" is a Bushism-turned-catchphrase used humorously to portray the speaker as ignorant about the Internet or about technology in general, or as having a provincial or folksy attitude toward technology. United States President George W. Bush first used the word publicly during the 2000 election campaign. The term gained cachet as an Internet humor meme following Bush's use of the term in the second 2004 presidential election debate on October 8, 2004.

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[edit] Presidential debates

Bush used the word Internets[a] in the third Gore-Bush presidential debate on October 17, 2000:[1]

JOYCE CLEAMER, AUDIENCE MEMBER: ...I'm very concerned about the morality of our country now. TV, movies, the music that our children are, you know, barraged with every day. And I want to know if there's anything that can be worked out with the—Hollywood, or whoever, to help get rid of some of this bad language and whatever, you know...
BUSH: ...We can have filters on Internets where public money is spent. There ought to be filters in public libraries and filters in public schools so if kids get on the Internet, there is not going to be pornography or violence coming in.

In the 2004 election's second debate in St. Louis, Missouri, Bush used the word Internets[a] in response to an audience question about a potential military draft:[2]

DANIEL FARLEY, AUDIENCE MEMBER: Mr. President, since we continue to police the world, how do you intend to maintain our military presence without reinstituting a draft?
BUSH: Yes, that's a great question. Thanks. I hear there's rumors on the, uh, Internets[b] [pause] that we're going to have a draft. We're not going to have a draft, period. The all-volunteer army works. It works particularly when we pay our troops well. It works when we make sure they've got housing, like we have done in the last military budgets.

Note a: The word "Internets" as used by Bush is capitalized in the official debate transcript.
Note b: The official transcript follows the word "Internets" with "(sic)". The transcript also omits the filler word "uh" preceding "Internets". Video footage of the quotation shows the full version.

[edit] Reaction

Ridicule, and later parody, of Bush's uncommon pluralization spread quickly on the Internet and in traditional media following the 2004 debate. Minutes after Bush made the remark, posters to online forums remarked that the term was "Another Bushism!",[3] wondered "is this where I find those 'internets' the President mentioned?",[4] and hypothesized "Something tells me our president does not spend a lot of time online."[5] The following evening, on October 9, 2004, Saturday Night Live parodied the debate,[6] with Will Forte's George W. Bush saying,

I hear there's rumors on the Internets that we're going to have a draft. I don't know how many of these Internets are carrying these rumors, but they're just wrong. I think the problem here may be more of a question of getting rid of the bad Internets and keeping the good Internets. You know, 'cause I think we can all agree... there're just too many Internets.[7]

The SNL parody was replayed the following morning (October 10, 2004) on CNN's Inside Politics Sunday.[8] Numerous homages and parodies, most including an audio or video clip from the second 2004 debate, appeared on other humor and entertainment web sites, including YTMND,[9][10] and spread virally on the Internet.

On his show The Colbert Report, comedian Stephen Colbert consistently refers to "the Internet" as "the Internets".[11] On the Thursday Mar 20 2008 World Water Day Episode: #04039 [1] Stephen Colbert states,

"Last night, as I was surfing the the Internets...literally:My backyard wave pool has Wi-Fi..."[12]

Keith Olbermann similarly makes use of the term during his Oddball segment whenever viral videos are covered. The term continues to appear as a popular topic tag on both technical[13] and political[14] blogs.

The fact that the Internet is an interconnected collection of networks – and therefore Internets is arguably a more correct term – was lost in much of the media coverage, but was reported in at least one account.[11]

[edit] Older use of "internets"

The singular "Internet" (usually capitalized, but see Internet for discussion) results from the connection of many smaller networks. In the early years of internetworking, an "internet" (uncapitalized) represented the connection of any two separate networks, and this word can be properly pluralized. This usage has not been common since the 1980s; today, systems of internetworked computers apart from (or as a subset of) the larger Internet are referred to as intranets. The term intranet is also used to refer to collections of Internet-technology applications (i.e. private web pages, portals) that are not visible on the public Internet.

[edit] See also

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ Transcript of the third Gore-Bush presidential debate. Commission on Presidential Debates (2000-10-17). Retrieved on 2006-12-23.
  2. ^ Transcript of the second Bush-Kerry presidential debate. Commission on Presidential Debates (2004-10-08). Retrieved on 2006-12-22.
  3. ^ UserFriendly Strip Comments - "On tha internets". UserFriendly.org (2004-10-08). Retrieved on 2006-12-23.
  4. ^ Bush vs Kerry II open discussion. BlueOregon.com (2004-10-08). Retrieved on 2006-12-23.
  5. ^ Scott Rosenberg's Links & Comment. Salon.com (2004-10-08). Retrieved on 2006-12-23.
  6. ^ Saturday Night Live Transcripts - Season 30: Episode 2 - Queen Latifah. snltranscripts.jt.org (2004-10-09). Retrieved on 2006-12-23.
  7. ^ Debates and Internets. Tuba City (2004-10-10). Retrieved on 2006-12-23.
  8. ^ Inside Politics Sunday transcript. CNN (2004-10-10). Retrieved on 2006-12-23.
  9. ^ [hyperlink blacklisted theinternets]. ytmnd.com. Retrieved on 2006-12-23.
  10. ^ [hyperlink blacklisted theinternetsmix]. ytmnd.com. Retrieved on 2006-12-23.
  11. ^ a b CNN story about "the Internets" and "the Google" (2006-10-27). Retrieved on 2007-12-27.
  12. ^ Thursday Mar 20 2008 World Water Day Episode: #04039 http://www.comedycentral.com/colbertreport/videos.jhtml?videoId=164481
  13. ^ Benedict, Jared. "Internets" tag at the future is yesterday. Retrieved on 2007-12-27.
  14. ^ Clarke Jr., John (2007-12-24). "Internets" tag at Wonkette. Retrieved on 2007-12-27.

[edit] External links